Teamwork​

​Almost every project in the BioPharm industry is managed by a multidisciplinary team.

Almost every project in the BioPharm industry is managed by a multidisciplinary team. Physicians who work in industry contribute to these teams in many ways, sometimes as team leaders but just as often as contributors reporting to a team leader from another discipline. We bring clinical expertise and our colleagues bring specialized knowledge of their fields. It is the combination of all this talent that products drugs, biologics, medical devices, and diagnostics.

Just as networking is important in finding a job, networking with your colleagues is critical in industry. During your residency, your team included other physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc. In industry, your team may include chemists, toxicologists, pharmacologists and veterinarians. You team will have biostatisticians, programmers, data management and IT staff. Your team will include Clinical Research Associates and Clinical Trial Assistants. Your team will include other Medical Directors. If you are on the commercial side of the industry, your team will include Marketing Directors, Sales Reps and Sales Training staff. You may work closely with Medical Writers or Medical Editors, Pharmacovigilance, and Medical Science Liaisons. Your boss might be another pharmaceutical physician or it might be the CEO. Most importantly, you will work closely with and learn an incredible amount from Regulatory Affairs staff.

If you are new to industry, you might not know what each of these colleagues does or understand what they expect from you and what you can learn from them. That comes with time. It’s easy to meet and work with people who work in the same office or at least on the same campus. It is harder to interact with company employees, independent consultants, or CRO staff located in another state or even in another country. But working together is critical to your success and the success of your projects. So reach out. Use your role on a project team or your assignment to work on one of the projects listed here to get to know your teammates. And you will establish lifelong friendships.

In this section called TEAMWORK, we will discuss how physicians in industry interact with other professionals. We will use a few multi-disciplinary projects as examples. We will discuss the TEAMWORK necessary to write a protocol, review and file an expedited SAE report, work on an IND filing, write an Investigator’s Brochure (IB) or a Clinical Study Report (CSR) or work on a Promotional Review Committee (PRC)